


Haunt It Or List It

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Exorcisms, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, House Hunting, M/M, Paranormal, not all that spooky despite the tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25660894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: Sometimes, you have to be the silly family in a horror movie that purposefully buys and moves into a haunted house.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Mark Lee
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	Haunt It Or List It

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Mark Lee!

It was the fourth open house they’d gone to that Saturday and, frankly, Doyoung was more than ready to hop to the fifth even though they had only been at this one for two minutes. “Who doesn’t have mimosas at an open house,” he loudly complained. 

“Really,” agreed Missus Lee, Mark’s mother. “These people are so stingy these days. How are they offering such miserly refreshments?” She waved a hand in the direction of the wooden kitchen table and its meager assortment of snacks: a plate of dry pita crackers topped with slabs of room temperature cheese and little paper cups of cheap, store-brand bottled water. Doyoung could tell it wasn’t the good stuff by the alkaline taste. At least that’s what he claimed after downing a cup and tossing it in the trash.

“You can wait in the van like you’ve been doing all afternoon,” Mark whispered at her. 

Missus Lee was still fussing. “In this heat?” She paced from one end of the kitchen to the other, arms folded and mouth curled into a disapproving frown. “I’m not saying they have to hire catering for every open house event but it’s  _ summer _ . There should at least be some iced tea.”

Mark just sighed. There was no use in saying anything to deter her at this point. She was going to go on and on, regardless of who they were in front of.

She said, “and did they think that no one who came by today would want to take a seat? Where are the chairs?” She circled the kitchen table again, as if she’d possibly missed the chairs the first time around.

Doyoung nearly ran too close to her in his haste to get up to the sink. “I’m sensing some problems with the plumbing here.” He jiggled the faucet in the lime-crusted kitchen sink. The entire thing nearly came loose from the cabinetry. Doyoung hummed thoughtfully and then said, “Mark, we should go back to that other house off Belleview so I can get another mimosa.”

Belleview hadn’t been the spot with mimosas. Mark corrected him, “That was Pine Grove.”

“Pine Grove,” Doyoung sang out, like he’d meant to say that the first time. He jiggled the faucet again and the sink groaned from his manhandling.

“Doyoung,” said Mark. Because that was all he had to say to make Doyoung unhand the faulty faucet.

Missus Lee tutted her disapproval. “This kitchen is very tiny. No pantry. No place to put the kimchi fridge…”

Now they were  _ both _ at it. “We can…”  _ Fix that later _ , the rest of Mark’s sentence died in his throat. He forgot that the agent was still in the room. Still watching.

“They should take like fifty bucks off for that,” said Doyoung, pointing to the faucet like it bit him. “Make it a hundred. Repair costs.”

“Doyoung,” Mark snapped again, a tad more firmly.

The real estate agent laughed a beat too long a beat too late. She asked, “Is there anything else I can help you gentlemen with?”

Mark held up his hands. “Really, we’re just--”

“That hump by the door might mean subfloor issues,” Doyoung muttered. “And something behind that wall is so rotted that the wallpaper is green.” Leave it to the professional contractor to see past the south-facing light streaming in through the windows; to ignore the ‘open concept living area’ to see right to the structural problems. “And that crack in the ceiling is mighty suspicious.”

Missus Lee was standing next to the archway of the kitchen now. She peered out into the hall. “It’s so stuffy in here. Can they really not slide open a door or crack open a window?” She smoothed her hands down the long sleeves of her blouse, obviously regretting her outfit choice in the humid weather. Mark had  _ told _ her to dress down! She never listened. She was so stubborn. Then again, that much was obvious, considering she was  _ still here _ . She huffed, “They could at least turn the air on.”

“It  _ is _ a little warm in here,” Mark muttered in agreement, attempting to pass the message along.

Doyoung asked, “Does this place even have central air? Adding installation on top of all of this needed reno will put us at the top of our budget.”

The agent switched into Save The Sale mode. “It is a fair market price, I assure you. You have to consider how many acres of land you’re getting. The property line goes all the way back to the woods.” She pointed out the window as if Doyoung would turn and look.

“Price is still a little high, considering how out of shape the place is.” Doyoung folded his arms across his chest. 

“And think of how much work the yard needs,” Missus Lee called out from the hall, off to explore. “Did you see all of that standing water? When was the last time it even rained?”

“The company is selling the home as is,” said the agent calmly, slowly. They all knew that. It was in the newspaper ad. The bottom line right before the agency’s phone number. “Now, if we could all calm down and focus on the house’s  _ potential _ …”

Doyoung wasn’t even angry. He just spoke loudly. All of the time. And he was  _ always _ ready to take a sledgehammer to something. It was not an aggressive thing. The wall smashing was… platonic? No. Wrong word. Well… Doyoung took hammers to things because he always wanted to ‘see the good bones.’ Really, the more he could knock over, the better.

Doyoung turned away from the sink and forced a smile in the agent’s direction but he didn’t stop noisily, impatiently smacking on his gum. “How open are you to negotiating that price?”

“I’m sure we can come up with a deal if you are seriously interested in buying,” said the agent, speaking through her fake smile.

For several seconds, they stared at each other, faces frozen in mockeries of kindness.

When the silence stretched awkwardly thin, Mark was the one who had to say, “Have you looked at the rest of the house, Doyoung?”

Doyoung finally took his eyes off of the agent to meet Mark’s gaze. “That would be helpful, wouldn’t it? If I were to… leave with the agent… to look at the rest of the house… so that you’re in here by yourself for a few minutes.”

Mark fixed him with a look that screamed  _ Duh _ !

Doyoung turned away to more properly engage in conversation with the agent. “Are you sure this place is competitively priced? I swear I’ve seen homes in much better shape for lower than this.”

These open house things were a little tricky but Doyoung had learned the unspoken rules over the years and knew exactly which rules he could lean on and break a little. Like the dress code. Well, it wasn’t a dress code per se, but it was best to dress like a buyer not a visitor. It was an open house, goddammit, and it was the middle of a muggy August, so no blazers and ties. Just his Happy Home Contracting short-sleeved polo shirt tucked into khaki slacks. The buttons were completely undone in this heat and revealed a salacious V-shape of his unevenly tanned chest. A comfortable look, but not so upmarket that he’d seem out of place standing in the musty innards of a decades-old fixer upper.

“The price has already come down a substantial amount. The home has been on the market about eleven months and we are doing all we can to bring in new interest.” The real estate agent was a short, stout woman in a burgundy pantsuit, wielding a clipboard and a stack of informational flyers unironically using Comic Sans. CHECK OUT THESE VIEWS, said the bolded header. There weren’t any views. She said, “Really, you can’t get a house this size for much cheaper.”

And, really, it  _ was _ quite cheap for a one-story four bedroom and two and a half bath. There was a big patio out front overgrown with weeds. The remnants of a low brick fence wrapped around the property, most of it chipped and faded and worn. With some planning and landscaping, there could be plenty of space for a shed and an outdoor pool out back but it would cost thousands to level the ground and fill in the trenches in the earth where a garden used to be. If Jungwoo were here with them, he’d probably be making calls to inspectors and to the showrooms. He’d already be pulling together fabric swatch combinations, putting a sledgehammer in Doyoung’s hands and aiming him towards the first wall for him to swing at while sipping on his coffee and flipping through his massive furniture catalog but… Jungwoo was with the kids working on an entirely different project. 

It was up to Doyoung and Mark to make the final judgment call here.

And they just might end up choosing pure shit.

Not that Jungwoo couldn’t turn shit into gold but Mark really didn’t want to  _ give _ him shit. Not on purpose. Especially after the last flip went so badly with the mountain of surprise repair costs and all of the delays due to the rain.

Since the more delicate design work couldn’t be trusted to Doyoung’s demolitionist tendencies, Mark had to be the one to size up the house’s pros and cons. Faded yellow siding turning green around the black shutters from mold. Rotted wooden stairs out back. The fireplace in the living room was hideous and utterly massive. The whole thing would have to go. From what Mark could tell after a precursory glance, the little laundry area off the dining room had been the house’s only renovation since it had been built. 

The house was a mess, all things considered, but that’s how fixer uppers were. 

He had skimmed the newspapers for potential targets and this place had checked off the majority of his boxes. The previous owner had died suddenly and now the agency was trying to hand over the property as cheaply and quickly as possible. That was always a good sign. The shadier the deal sounded on paper, the more likely Mark would be able to find something. 

The location wasn’t bad, either, Mark considered. A middle school was down the road in one direction, right at the corner. A high school was located over the river and thirty minutes away in the other direction. The nearest on ramp to the highway was two blocks west and three blocks north. Close enough to be convenient for a commute, far enough away that the highway noise didn’t quite reach them through all the evergreen trees. If they spruced it up, it would sell like hot cakes. They could turn a massive profit. Easy.

But none of that potential would matter if he couldn’t find something deep to work with.

“You sure you can’t knock another ten thousand off the asking price,” Doyoung wondered. “We can pay in cash. Take it off your hands by next weekend.”

The agent nearly rolled her eyes at Doyoung’s ridiculous suggestion but kept her face passive and cool. “I’ll have to run it by the others in the agency. I’m sure they’re ready to get this off the market already but, really, the property is competitively priced as is. You can’t find a better deal in such an up-and-coming area.”

“Up-and-coming, huh,” said Doyoung, trying his best to sound genuinely interested.

Mark knew that tone of voice, though. Doyoung had been in this business long enough to see through the meaningless jargon. Even Mark, who only paid the bare minimum of attention to all the real estate bullshit, knew the agent’s claim was a bit of a stretch. The houses in this neighborhood weren’t new constructions. The neighborhood would have been up-and-coming thirty years ago. There was a chance the area’s population could gain some upward growth if the developers ever broke ground on that shopping center across the river but the ‘Coming Soon’ sign had been staked into the hill beside the road for over three years, not a single construction vehicle in sight. Mark had looked into it. Read online newspaper articles. Skimmed through angry, hasty comment sections posted beneath those online newspaper articles.

The real estate agent continued, “The price of this home came down around four thousand at the start of the month, bringing it into a new price range. The neighborhood is a little… sparse right now but the location is nice and the land value will definitely skyrocket in the next five years.”

“Because of construction on that new train station, right,” Missus Lee asked, strolling back into the kitchen right behind the agent.

Mark cleared his throat. “Because of… uhhh… construction on the new train station?”

“Why, yes,” said the agent. She smiled a bit. Finally taking the two of them seriously as buyers. “It’s the perfect starter home for a young…  _ contemporary _ couple with a family in mind.” She looked over at Doyoung and then, without pretending to be subtle, she swung her eyes in Mark’s direction.

They got that a lot.

Mark just smiled politely at her until she looked away and then let his smile immediately droop.

“A couple,” repeated Missus Lee. She stepped through the agent and walked up to Mark. Her eyes went straight to his left hand before hooking upwards to catch Mark’s stare. “Why didn’t you tell me you two finally got engaged?” 

Mark’s eyes went wide. Engaged? That was news to him! And what did that  _ finally _ mean?

Before he could get a word in edgewise, she continued, “This is what I get for spending all of my time at the ancestral home. I miss seeing my baby grow up. When is the wedding?” She didn’t give Mark a chance to respond. She looked over her shoulder at the tall man leaning against the kitchen counter. “Doyoung is such a sweet fellow. Honest and strong and smart. I tried to tell you for years but--”

Mark coughed into his fist, resisting the urge to whine ‘Mooooooom’ like he was ten years old.

Why would she let such a silly sound stop her? She crossed the kitchen to stand next to Doyoung and kept right on. “I’ve always dreamed you’d have a fall wedding, son. Warm colors always suited your skin tone best. We can go out to the country, rent one of those big farms for the day and have the reception in a big white barn.” She grinned excitedly. Her hand shimmered delicately as she placed it on Doyoung’s shoulder. Doyoung, to his credit, only mildly shuddered. “Think of it, Mark. All of the leaves on the trees will be orange and red. There would be no shortage of pumpkin pie or apple cider. Think of how beautiful the hills would be! I’ve always wanted to try riding a horse. What about--”

Mark coughed into his fist a bit more aggressively. Gosh. Couldn’t she read the room?

“You okay over there,” Doyoung asked, looking up at Mark. “Sounds like you’ve got a frog in your throat.”

“I’m fine,” Mark choked out. “I’m just--” Okay. How did he say this without sending his mother in a ten-minute tirade? “I just don’t want a big wedding.” Shit. That wasn’t even really what he meant to say!

“Oh, that’s very sweet,” said the agent, smiling genuinely for the first time this whole while.

Doyoung tilted his head. “Thought you told me you wanted to get married at a ski resort or something outdoorsy?”

The agent giggled lightly. “That’s also romantic.”

Mark blushed. He had attempted to avoid this very scenario. Perhaps he should have changed the subject entirely.

Then again, anyone on the outside looking in would easily misinterpret his relationship with Doyoung. He looked down at his left hand. The same place his mother had been staring earlier.

Yeah. That gold band was starting to stir things up and he’d only had it for two or so weeks. Matching rings always made people hop to the wrong conclusions. 

Really, Mark had only been trying to buy something for himself but Doyoung had seen the photo on the laptop screen and had offered to pay for the entire order if Mark also added a ring in his size to the cart. It wasn’t a marriage thing at all. At least, Mark was pretty sure it wasn’t. Plus, Doyoung just never thought about that kind of shit. To him, he was just ordering a pretty, gold ring that matched his friend’s. To everyone else, they were engaged. 

Doyoung was only good at swinging hammers and laying down grout and rolling paint onto walls and planting decorative shrubbery.

Mark had to do all the thinking.

Missus Lee was still living her dream. “I’m thinking the wedding colors should be peach and white. That will offer good contrast with all of the apples and pumpkins, right? I wouldn’t mind seeing some grandkids, soon. Can’t you adopt? Or get a surrogate?”

“Kids,” Mark blurted out.

“Kids,” the agent repeated, confused by Mark’s outburst.

“Oh, the kids?” Doyoung asked. “What about them? You think they’ll like a place like this?”

“There are  _ already _ kids,” Missus Lee asked, wide-eyed. She looked over at Doyoung. “From a previous relationship? Are you getting along with them, Mark? You’ve always had a way with toddlers--” 

“They aren’t  _ our _ kids,” Mark cut her off in frustration. “They aren’t even kids! Chenle’s like… in his last year of high school. We just call them our kids because they work for us. You’ve been around long enough. You should know that!” Mark stomped away from his mother’s astonished expression. Maybe she’d get the hint if he stood more directly in the sunlight streaming in through the window so that she could plainly see how red his cheeks were from mortification.

Doyoung and the agent just stared at him, a little confused.

Then the agent slowly continued her pitch. “Okay… There’s a spare room beside the guest bath that you can use as an office now but it can easily be converted into a nursery down the line. If… If there are more kids in the future.”

“Oh, we might end up collecting a few more,” Doyoung laid it on thick. “Tell me more about this office.”

Eager to close the deal, the real estate agent led Doyoung out of the kitchen, absolutely  _ needing _ to show him the house’s ‘architectural features.’ Absolutely needing to tell him how great of a ‘prime investment’ the house was.

The moment she was gone, Mark breathed out a, “Finally,” and immediately went to work.

Damn, he’d been waiting _ forever _ to be in the room alone.

Well, not alone-alone, as his mother was there, but  _ still _ . 

He crossed the room in one direction, then crossed it while walking the other way, counting his steps both times. He calculated the center of the room and then squatted down on the bluish-purple tile flooring. God, it was  _ linoleum _ . And peeling up in the corners! Jungwoo would have started ripping it up and hauling it out the back door the second he crossed the threshold.

Mark tossed the thought aside. Now wasn’t the time.

If he had a bit more time and space, he’d sprinkle a salt circle of protection on the floor but he probably had a minute. Two at the most. And he’d need every second of that to get things going. 

Despite the awfully hot weather, Mark wore a dark hoodie and baggy sweatpants, but he put up with the sweaty armpits and the gross stickiness in the creases of his knees in order to have so many pockets. To have all of his tools within reach. 

He dug into the front pouch of his hoodie and removed his protection amulet. It was around the size of his fist and the wooden thing was almost totemic in the sharp angles of its carvings and the brightly-colored paint along the surface. It was a Lee family heirloom. Passed down from exorcist to exorcist. He wasn’t even supposed to have it. Fuck, if his brother found out… 

“Is that what I think it is,” his mother’s voice broke his concentration. She was leaning directly over his shoulder, hands on her hips. “Mark Lee!”

Fuck! He kind of forgot that she was standing there. He was so used to her staying in the van! Well, it was too late to start lying. “I’ll have it back at the house before he notices it’s gone.” He hung the amulet by its hemp cord around his neck. Just putting it on made the image of his mother blur and warp like he was looking at her from underwater. She’d be fine. Mark reached back into his hoodie pouch to pull out a long, rectangular wooden dish. An incense burner.

“Are you really trying to perform a procedure right now,” Missus Lee nagged. Her voice came out of thin air, distant but still shrill with maternal anger. “Without salt? Without candles? Without protection? Without backup--”

Mark interrupted, “I’m not exorcising. I’m just peeping.”

He set the incense burner on the floor between his knees.

Dammit. He nearly forgot! He leaned to the side and stretched out his arms, reaching and reaching. He slapped a hand down on the top of the kitchen table and blindly groped until he felt the corner of the snack tray with the crackers and the dry cheese. He grabbed a Saltine with one hand. With the other, he fished around in his sweatpants pocket for his cheap gas station lighter. It was orange and, based on how light it was, nearly spent.

Missus Lee still wasn’t having any of this. “I had a feeling I should come inside this time around. This must be why. If your brother knew… If your _ father _ knew what you were out here doing!”

“Neither of them are going to find out,” Mark said. “At least not from you. Johnny can’t hear you anymore. And Dad can’t hear  _ or _ see you anymore. Remember?”

“They’ve locked me out of their hearts,” his mother huffed. She shimmered into view on the other side of the room. “Your father… He still blames himself for my death.”

Mark had heard the story a million times. He really didn’t want to make that a million and one. “If you’ve got that much of a problem with it, just turn around.” Sitting back on his haunches, he finished the rest of his prep.

He fished his last incense stick out of his hoodie pouch. He held it between his teeth like it was a long, skinny cigar, spun the sparkwheel of the lighter until the gas ignited and then held the flame to the tip of the incense stick like he was really about to smoke it. He just didn’t have a free hand, dammit!

Missus Lee kept on nagging. “You’re not half as slick as you think you are. I’m sure your brother is already aware of your deception.”

“Deception,” Mark repeated, scandalized. He had to spin the sparkwheel again to reignite the flame. It took a moment for the fire to catch on the incense. When it did, Mark dropped the lighter, pulled the incense stick from between his teeth and gently shook it to blow out the flame. It smelled sweet. That was a good sign. The smoke was already reacting to something in the house and he hoped it wasn’t just his mother. “I’m not deceiving anyone.” The cloud of white smoke billowed up and around the room. “And what’s worse… Johnny not picking up on what I’m doing at all when he’s supposed to be better. Or Johnny knowing what I’m up to and letting me have it?”

“We have rules about these things, Mark,” Missus Lee deflected. “Exorcists work in pairs for a reason. You need your brother here.”

“I’m not battling a ghost,” Mark hissed. He was losing precious seconds with this discussion. He could only hope Doyoung could buy him a bit more time. “I just need to know if we can use this house. I’m not doing enough to  _ disturb _ anything.” Or so he hoped.

Missus Lee looked unconvinced, perhaps even  _ worried _ , but she did not move from her spot on the other side of the room.

Mark propped the stick of incense on the tiny little stand in the burner and then crumbled the cracker in his hand into pieces between his fingers before he dropped the mess into the flat bottom of the incense burner.

There.

It wasn’t the most effective of offerings but it was the best he could do on the go.

Besides, most low-level spirits weren’t picky about what it was they were being offered. They were starving, gaping holes of insatiable hunger and the fact that they were being offered anything  _ at all _ was usually enough to bring them out.

This would be far easier to do if he had his incantation papers, his bells, his sage, anything, but Doyoung had pulled up outside of his house that morning completely unannounced and Mark’s only choices were either to let him keep up all of that honking in the driveway and attract the attention of his older brother and parents or slip out of the house and hop into the passenger seat so Doyoung could take him on whatever adventure he had planned.

Mark shut his eyes and clapped his hands together once, twice, three times.

If he had been watching, he would have seen his mother glow bright blue and then flicker out like she was but a blown-out candle flame. She’d be back. If a ghost didn’t want to cross over, they could be quite tenacious, even with the proper tools in place.

Mark opened his eyes. Next came the incantation:

“O spirits of the realm, watch the light of my flame and be guided to my side.”

The old language was percussive on his tongue and the words would have had more power if he sang them, if there was the pulse of drums and bells around him.

“O spirits of the realm, unsleeping mouths, I beseech you. I call you.”

Come on, Mark, he chided himself. Feel it in your gut. Push!

His nose tingled as the incense smoke wafted up around his nose.

“O spirits who still linger here, I offer you sustenance. Follow my voice across the veil.”

He could feel the energy drawing closer and closer. All around him.

Mark squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force out the noise of Doyoung’s shouting and stomping from three rooms away. Harder to ignore were the slightly unnerved giggles of the agent as she listened to Doyoung’s complaints about the lack of a walk-in closet.

Mark continued the rites, “O spirits of the realm, be sated. Come to me.”

There it was. 

Slightly. 

Barely perceptible but growing heavier and heavier as the seconds ticked by. It was that all-too-familiar pressure on his skull like someone was squeezing his head. Pulling on his hair. It was that odd crackle of power across the hair on the backs of his knuckles that clued him in to the fact that  _ something _ really was here. The unnatural dip in temperature made goosebumps bubble the surface of his skin even underneath his hoodie.

He sucked in a breath, tasting incense smoke on his tongue.

There  _ was _ spiritual activity in this house but it was... residual. 

Mark sighed in disappointment.

He still knelt on the floor but he chased after that lingering power. He followed the coils of spiritual energy and held on to it tightly when he found the deepest part of it. It was easy to sift through. Clean despite its utter heaviness. 

Now he understood. The previous owner of this house was an old grandmother who died in her sleep in the living room. Alone. As Mark inhaled the white smoke of the incense, he could feel her memories churn inside of him like they were his own. 

Six children who grew up and moved away. News of marriages and grandchildren came by phone call. She had a husband who died young. She stayed in an empty house for years and years, too heartbroken and devoted to find love again. She wanted to leave the house to one of her children. One of her grandchildren. It was paid off and had good bones. Just needed a little love. A little care. But the majority of her children had bought homes of their own. The oldest grandchild wouldn’t be old enough to inherit it for a decade and a half and it would be an utter hassle to maintain the house when the rest of the family lived so far away. None of them needed a house that far outside of the city. She should sell it, they said. Move to the big city with them so that they could visit more often. 

She didn’t want to leave all of her memories behind. 

She stayed. For years and years, she stayed. Even as the phone calls slowed and eventually stopped.

And then she died alone. 

But that was all Mark could feel. That was it. Her sadness. Her loneliness. The slightly troubled wheeze of her last breath. It was all he could feel because it was all she left behind.

Her spirit had long crossed over but,  _ boy _ , did her aching heart linger. It still beat and beat and beat through the walls of the house, vibrating the hairs in Mark’s inner ear and forcing a shudder out of him even as sweat dampened his forehead. The chill was all that was left and, with time, even that would leave.

If he had a few more ingredients, Mark could scrub the last of her out of the corners and rafters, but if his family found out he was doing unauthorized exorcisms…  _ again _ … 

Mark heard Doyoung’s loud voice and heavy footsteps come closer and closer up the hall. 

Shit! There was no time left.

Mark whispered a quick thank you. He snapped open his eyes, blew out the stick of incense, pulled his amulet up and over his head and barely had the time to cram everything back into the pouch of his hoodie before Doyoung was stepping back into the kitchen, all smiles.

He looked so different when he wasn’t covered in dirt and dressed in his overalls and work boots. “Hmm, smells a little lemongrass-y in here,” Doyoung offhandedly commented. He returned to the sink with the faulty faucet but instead of jiggling it again, he undid the latch and shoved open the tiny window above the counter. “Ahh, better.”

Maybe, just maybe, it actually helped get the sweet smell of incense smoke out of the room.

The agent stepped into the kitchen. Fortunately, her eyes were on her clipboard, giving Mark the extra seconds he needed to finish stuffing his pockets, wipe cracker crumbs off of his hand and stand up off of the floor.

Doyoung leaned back from the window. “What do you think of the place, babe?”

The misplaced term of endearment completely unbalanced Mark’s focus. “Wha-”

Doyoung snickered at the astonished look on Mark’s face. He’d done it on purpose. He stepped closer and leaned towards Mark. “Is the house worth it,” he asked in a whisper.

“The investment? No.”

“I thought you said you felt something?”

Doyoung was close. Very close. All Mark could really see of him was his rushed bleach job which had turned his curls more copper than gold. Mark leaned forward and spoke into the man’s ear, “I did, but... It was just some old emotions that will fade once enough new memories get stacked on top.” Doyoung’s body heat was like a furnace and Mark was already feeling lightheaded from sweating his balls off in his hoodie and sweatpants. He pushed on Doyoung’s chest until he got some breathing room.

“Damn,” Doyoung huffed. He backed away. “Four old houses in one afternoon and not one of them’s haunted.”

Mark covered up the man’s slip of the tongue with a cough into the elbow of his hoodie.

The real estate agent just stood on the other side of the kitchen, trying too hard to look like she wasn’t staring them down.

Doyoung aimed his voice at her. “We’ll look into some other houses in the area but this one’s high up on our list. It’s got almost everything we’re looking for.” Based on the glint in his eyes, it had one too many walls for his liking and he was more than ready to swing a sledgehammer at every single one.

Mark no longer felt the need to keep up the pretense. “We are going to go while there’s still plenty of time before other open houses finish up.” He grabbed Doyoung by the elbow and tugged him out of the kitchen and down the hall towards the entryway. He freed a business card from his sweatpants pocket and waved it at the agent on their heels when she attempted to hand Doyoung another. “We’ll be in touch,” Mark told her. 

They wouldn’t be in touch.

Outside, the afternoon sun slanted through the trees, the dappled light leading their way down the front steps and across the wide, half-withered lawn.

It definitely felt like the kind of place Mark would get as far away from as he could. No wonder the kids had left and not come back.

Doyoung said, “Jungwoo would put a pool and a big shed out back.”

And it was kind of funny because it was exactly what Mark had been thinking. “What color do you think he’d get for the front door?”

They both turned around to look at the old house. At the leaves clogging up the gutters. At the overgrown bushes swarming around the corners.

“Yellow,” said Mark at the same time Doyoung said, “Red, err… Yellow.”

They laughed at each other before turning back around.

Every step through the knee-high grass stirred up gnats and the bitchy little critters buzzed in Mark’s ears as the cicadas wailed from the forest behind the house.

Doyoung glanced over his shoulder to make sure the agent wasn’t going to chase them across the yard with a reasonable offer, then he nudged Mark in the side. “Has there really been  _ nothing _ all afternoon?”

“I wouldn’t call it nothing. Just not…  _ something _ .” Mark thought back on the houses they’d visited today.

Belleview was the tiny little shotgun house with rumors of a murder-suicide taking place in the main bedroom keeping the price low. It had everything going for it in terms of a creepy atmosphere with the dead trees and all the crows but the rumors must have been false because Mark hadn’t sensed a shred of animosity in the place.

Pine Grove (with the mimosas) was the most promising. That house actually had a ghost: the spirit of an overworked and underpaid gardener who continued with his work even in death but Mark knew better than to give Jungwoo three houses in a row that didn’t have a serial killer or axe murderer victim or scorned housewife or terrifying, wailing child lurking in the dark hallways.

Reese’s Commons had been the swanky place in a suburban subdivision. It was creepy like Belleview but on the other end of the spectrum with its manicured lawns and identical houses and streets named after dead presidents. The neighbors had been tight-lipped and visibly uneasy when Doyoung went around and prodded them with questions about the previous owners. Mark had gone inside and thought he’d found something, felt something, but all of the anger he’d peeled off of the walls were just lingering emotions and none of them were tied to a vengeful ghost.

And, of course, this place had been a bust as well.

Shame, really. It would have looked the prettiest out of all of them once Jungwoo was finished. He adored big wrap-around porches.

Doyoung kept pestering him. “You sure you’re not broken somehow, Mark?”

Mark groaned, “It’s not my fault if the walls don’t start bleeding as soon as I walk in the place.” 

“It’s just never taken this long before.”

“I know.”

“I’m not asking you to hurry up or anything, but--”

“I know,” Mark repeated sternly.

They reached the side of the quiet rural street. Mark pulled the keys to Doyoung’s battered and discolored work van out of his pocket and swung open the driver’s door.

Doyoung circled around the hood of the van and got in on the passenger side. One of his unfinished mimosas still sat in its plastic champagne glass in the cupholder and, warm from sitting in the sun and all, he raised it to his lips and downed it. “The crew’s getting antsy,” he said, dropping the empty glass back in the cupholder. “We’re getting mighty close to a month with no work and Jungwoo’s starting on his ninth miniature. Ninth!” He reached up, grabbed the rearview mirror and directed it towards his face, then poked and prodded at his nose as he watched himself in the glass.

“You can flip regular houses, you know.” 

“Yeah, but… It’s just that… things go better when we have a bit of direction from you.”

Mark grabbed the mirror and swung it back towards himself so that he could see out of the back window. “You guys can’t do anything without me telling you to? I didn’t know I had become everyone’s boss. Do I get a raise?” 

“You know what I mean,” Doyoung whined. It was clearly the mimosas turning him into such a loud, childish, whiny mess. He must have snuck more glasses of the stuff than Mark originally thought. “Jungwoo and the kids and I… We just really appreciate your input.”

Mark cranked up the work van. She sputtered and belched for several long seconds before the engine turned over and rattled to life. Mark checked the mirrors, eased the van into gear and got them going down the old country road.

“I don’t have to be there, you know,” said Mark. “I don’t technically work for you guys. I don’t even help with the reno.”

“It’s just not the same when you’re not there,” Doyoung huffed. “Piddling around with your little bells and slips of paper and weird chanting. It’s all calming white noise.”

Mark had no idea exorcisms could be considered ‘calming.’ “We didn’t get lucky this weekend either. I’m sorry. Just tell Jungwoo to pick a house and I’ll wait around until the next one.”

Doyoung reached out a hand and slapped it down hard and loud on Mark’s thigh, nearly making the younger man steer them off the road. “No,” Doyoung sang out. “We’ll wait for your decision. I promise.”

Mark sighed. A conversation about this now would be next to useless. Mark would just tell Jungwoo and Jisung and Chenle and Jeno and Jaemin and the rest to just find a house and flip it without him picking it out. If they were growing that hungry for profit, they should have done so long before now. Mark glanced into the rearview and watched the old house disappear around the bend in the road. They had saved this particular open house for last because it was the farthest away. It would take an hour to get back to Jungwoo’s and without the GPS announcing driving instructions every five minutes, it would be a long and quiet drive.

Doyoung rolled down the window and the hot August breeze swept into the cab. It offered no relief from the heat but it stirred up his rust-orange hair and made him smile. “I know we… We know we could-- We’d always have work if we did regular things but, like, you help us so we want to help you.”

“Let’s get takeout,” Mark interrupted. He slowed down for a stop sign and then turned across the intersection in the direction of the highway. “Wanna get something close by and eat on the drive?” He could use some greasy fast food. He hadn’t had any in a while.

“I’ll text Jungwoo first to make sure he’s not already cooking with the kids.” Doyoung freed his ancient flip phone from the pocket of his slacks and then slowly typed out his message. Unnecessarily, he spoke what he was typing, “Babe… are… you… cooking?” 

Mark had to remember that Doyoung called  _ everyone _ babe. He wasn’t special in that regard. 

Mark made another turn and then slowed to a stop to allow a parade of noisy ducks to cross the asphalt and descend into the river. He looked over at Doyoung and tried his best not to stare too hard and then he realized he  _ had _ to stare because Doyoung suddenly had two faces. No. Wait. That was Missus Lee materialising in the passenger seat, clipping through Doyoung’s body like a video game glitch.

Doyoung felt Mark’s eyes on him and looked over. “Do I have something on my face?”

Mark answered truthfully, “My mom’s sitting in you.”

“I thought I was only imagining the chill,” Doyoung said. “Hello Missus Lee! Did she hear me? What did she say back?”

Mark refused to tell him that his mother had just called him her son-in-law. Instead, he said, “She said hey back. And she wants to thank you for the birthday cake you offered her.”

Doyoung’s cheeks flushed. “It’s the least I can do.” Then, firmly, almost soberly, “road’s clear.”

With the ducks gone, their journey resumed. Closer and closer to town they went. They drove through a residential area and a large bush sitting right at the corner obscured Mark’s view of any incoming traffic coming from the left. “Shit, they need to trim that,” he commented. “There’s gotta be a law.” He threw up a quick prayer and just gunned it out into the intersection. Fortunately, there were no approaching cars. “But about the whole contracting thing… You guys don’t have to hold up your own schedule for me,” said Mark, pressing heavy on the accelerator as the speed limit increased. “I can find my own work.”

This little arrangement of theirs had been in place for just over five years now. Doyoung and Jungwoo were childhood friends and now they run a contracting business together flipping houses. That would sound pretty normal on paper until you tacked on the bit where they specialize in fixing up  _ haunted _ houses. Yup. Now it was weird. Wait wait wait. Okay, so like… They didn’t specialize in flipping haunted houses until after they met Mark when he’d broken into one of their properties to scrub it clean. There. _ Now _ it was properly kooky.

Their partnership just… worked.

Mark came from a long line of exorcists whose entire life goal was making haunted places not haunted anymore. But exorcisms took time and resources and required a lot of noise just like renovating a house did. So what was more effective than renovating and exorcising simultaneously while splitting a bit of profit in the end?

At least that’s how Mark tried to explain it to his uptight brother that one time.

Doyoung looked up from his phone. “Jungwoo’s reheating the last of the lasagna and fries so, yeah, we should get takeout.” Thunder rumbled overhead, sudden and loud. By the time they were out from under all of the trees, it was just beginning to rain. “Strange. There was no rain in the forecast.” Doyoung rolled up his window and fiddled with the van’s air conditioning instead. “I’ll keep sifting through the house sale listings and find us more potential gold mines. I’ll have a new list for us next weekend.”

“Just give me more than three minutes to get ready to leave next time,” Mark scolded him. He didn’t know why it took so long for him to notice that Doyoung’s hand was still on his thigh. Mark gripped the steering wheel hard and tried his best not to run them off the road. “And I don’t think I should stay for dinner this time.” He should go straight home once he’d dropped Doyoung off. Johnny would more than likely make him cook dinner and vacuum the house as punishment for taking the family amulet without asking.

Again.

To make sure it was still there, Mark put a hand over his lower stomach and pressed down until he could feel the wood of the amulet beneath the thick cotton of the hoodie. He sighed with relief.

“You okay,” Doyoung asked. “You hungry?”

“Yeah,” Mark partially lied. He was indeed hungry. But he was also worried. Worried that he wouldn’t be able to keep spending time with Doyoung and the others if he couldn’t find them another haunted house.

There was a gas station with a McDonald’s attached to it right across the street from them at the light. The golden arches tempted him as they glowed through the curtain of rain and Mark nearly swung them into the parking lot on pure instinct. “I know Jungwoo prefers Wendy’s,” he said as he straightened the work van back into the lane.

“You know me. Food is food,” Doyoung said. Only then did Doyoung seem to realize he was working the thumb of his left hand in slow, gentle circles across Mark’s denim-clad thigh. He pulled his hand away, cleared his throat and sat up straight in his chair.

Mark was both relieved at the separation but also terribly upset by it. He wanted that contact again. Desperately. But it also kind of terrified him. What had he done to properly earn such a touch?

Mark slowed down to take a left onto the highway on ramp, when--

Hold on. 

Hold on!

Mark slammed on the accelerator and the work van grumbled and shuddered in protest at the sudden burst of speed.

Doyoung watched the turn they were supposed to take disappear behind them in the side view mirror. He casually asked, “Where are you off to, babe?”

They rumbled over the bridge, the highway a long black ribbon between the trees, clogged with traffic. Headlights reflected in long streaks on the surface of the wet roads. Mark hooked a right at the next light. They passed by a used car lot where a team of men swarmed across the lot attempting to close car hoods and doors as the freak rainstorm soaked everything.

Mark sensed it again. Stronger. Closer. He nearly sent them off the road with how fast he took a left turn.

Doyoung went from playfully concerned to genuinely confused. “Okay, what the hell is up, Mark?”

Perhaps Mark could have blamed what he saw on the storm, but he had been a trained exorcist too long for that sort of thought. He was positive he’d seen a towering slash of black lightning arc across the sky. A burst of negative emotional energy that could only be caused by-- 

“An angry ghost,” Mark and his mother said simultaneously.

Doyoung’s demeanor changed instantly. No more jokes. He was serious. “I’ll call Jungwoo and tell him to bring the kids along.” 

“And food,” Mark reminded him.

“And food,” Doyoung confirmed. He was already smashing his thumb into the keypad of his flip phone to dial Jungwoo’s number. He raised it to his ear and when Jungwoo answered, Doyoung screeched, “Babe!”

While those two chattered back and forth, Mark kept his eyes on the road. A vague splotch in the sky wasn’t exactly precise driving directions from a GPS, so he took roads that he hoped aimed him in the general direction of where he’d seen the dark flash. The roads narrowed and he eased off the accelerator as they rumbled past a neighborhood of old houses and a white-steepled church. A junkyard sat way back from the road, surrounded by a barbed-wire fence and more ‘no trespassing’ signs than necessary. Mark steered them around a steep hill, past the burnt-out remnants of some kind of large building.

“You need to call your brother,” said Missus Lee.

“He won’t come,” Mark answered her.

“This is too big for one exorcist. Can’t you smell it? Can’t you feel it?” Then Missus Lee let out a tiny little ‘oh’ and promptly vanished like she had no control over it.

She’d be back. She’d be back. There’s no way she’d stay gone.

Doyoung wrapped up his phone call. “Jungwoo’s on the way with the kids. I told him we just drove past Clayton-Fields Baptist Church but I’ll text him a more specific address once you figure out where we’re going.”

“Cool,” Mark said. “Cool. I can handle this. On my own. Yeah.” He took his eyes off the road to stare up at the sky. Rain fell. Lightning flashed. He was positive it had been around here. They had to be close.

Then he saw it. Out of the corner of his eye.

Not just the old house that sat far back from the road, but… a dark spark. A warping of reality as the veil parted and brought the world of the living and the world of the dead a little closer.

Mark braked hard and made a sharp left onto a gravel road. He could feel the van’s tires slip.

A little ways up, the road turned from gravel to plain dirt beneath the tires without warning and when Mark panicked and slammed on brakes, the van skidded like it was on ice as it slipped through the mud. He put the van in park and cut the engine. Mark didn’t even wait for the van to stop rocking back and forth before he unbuckled himself, flung his hood over his dark hair, swung open the driver’s door and charged out into the rain.

Yes. Now that he was outside the van, he could _ feel  _ it.

Pulsing in the air, almost. In and out, in and out like someone’s hot breath on his face. The sensation sent a tingle up his neck. It made the protective amulet in his hoodie pouch feel like it weighed a ton. Mark clamped a hand over the hoodie pouch and just having the amulet pressed that much more closely to his skin relieved the worst of his chills.

“Shit,” he hissed, catching a whiff of it. “This smells a little eldritch.”

He ran forward, moving in the direction of the old house. The rain was coming down so thick that Mark didn’t see the ‘for sale’ sign staked into the ground until after he had tripped over it and rolled into the lawn.

“Fuck! Oh my god,” he screeched.

He was sprawled on his back coughing for several seconds before Doyoung was hovering over him with a half-broken umbrella and pulling him to his feet. “Why are you rushing? It’s not like the house is gonna grow legs and walk away,” said Doyoung with a laugh. “Unless it belongs to Baba Yaga.”

Mark wiped dirt and grass from his clothes. He coughed and sputtered, his throat tight with sudden apprehension. “I just wanted to make sure I’m right.”

He turned his head and peered through the rain. He had to squint to get a good look at the tall, narrow two-story home with murky pink siding and olive green shutters. There was a wrap-around porch with a wooden swing out front. The lawn was overgrown with dandelions and wildflowers. The mailbox was white and slightly sideways, thin vines crawling up along the tall wooden post.

Spruce it up and the house would look like it belonged on the front cover of HGTV magazine.

That ominous, gut-wrenching feeling Mark experienced earlier was gone. It had been a temporary burst of spiritual energy but Mark had been doing this too long. Just because he could no longer feel it, that didn’t mean that it was  _ gone _ . In fact, if he breathed deep, he could still smell it in the air. Like incense smoke. “We’ve got ourselves a haunted house,” he announced proudly.

Doyoung jumped in the air and excitedly hollered, nearly snapping his already flimsy umbrella in two. “Yes! Finally!” He slapped a hand down hard on Mark’s back. “Thanks for all the hard work, babe.” And then he pressed a quick, chaste kiss to Mark’s cheek.

Maybe it was because Mark was still sensitive from conversing with the spirit realm at the open house but he could have sworn he could still feel Doyoung’s lips on his skin, the touch burning and burning. Branding him.

There was just one minor issue: “There’s no open house scheduled for today,” said Mark, eyeing the realtor’s sign he’d tripped over.

Leave it to Doyoung to have a solution for everything. “I’ll go get my sledgehammer.”

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/TheSwingbyJHF)


End file.
